Ten Things Lawyers Should Know About Internet Research

kc claffy

CAIDA, San Diego Supercomputer Center, University of California San Diego

Updating legal frameworks to accommodate technological
advancement of communications capabilities requires first
updating other legal frameworks to accommodate empirically
grounded research into what we have built, how it is used,
and what it costs to sustain. Unfortunately for -- and
due to -- well-intentioned policymakers, our scientific
knowledge about the Internet is weak because researchers
are typically not allowed access to any data on operational
network infrastructure for privacy reasons. This data
access problem was recognized long ago for its detrimental
impact on infrastructure protection capabilities; many
public and private sector efforts have failed to solve it.
Public policy intended to protect individual user privacy
places the research community in the absurd situation
of not being able to do the most basic network research
even on the networks established explicitly to support
academic network research. Despite the methodological
limitations of Internet science today, the few data
points available suggest a dire picture of the future.
But while the situation overwhelmingly indicates the
need for a closer objective look, the only people with
measurement capability on publicly accessible network
infrastructure today are tasked with inferring as much
private information on individual users as possible --
whether it's to target terrorists or ads. The traditional
mode of getting data from public infrastructures to
inform policymaking -- regulating its collection --
is a quixotic path, since the government regulatory
agencies have as much reason to be reluctant as providers
regarding disclosure of how the Internet is engineered,
used, and financed. Less surprising with hindsight, the
opaqueness of the infrastructure to empirical analysis
has generated many problematic responses from rigidly
circumscribed communities trying to get their jobs done.
As dismal as it sounds though, the news is not all bad --
there is a reason everyone wants to be connected to all
the world's knowledge, as well as eachother, besides its
status as the most powerful complex system ever created
by man. The Internet's practical promise for individual
freedom, democratic engagement, and economic empowerment
is also unparalleled. Moreover, even in the dim light of
the profoundly needed but underattended interdisciplinary
research into the network, we can ascertain some concrete
constraints on the possible range of policy solutions,
which all involve increasing the congruity between what
we legislate and what we know.